I wish

Written retrospectively during our recent hospital stay at the beginning of August 2012.

Lightning illuminates the cracks between the drawn blinds. A cracking peal of thunder shakes the relative peace of the ward and the sky flashes bright again. Heavy rain dramatically beats the window, flash flooding the road below. I can barely make out a building just across the road through the lashings of weather.

I wish I could show Wriggles.

Her tubes are still connected to the humidified oxygen tank, barely reaching to the other side of the cot bed. She is still connected to a drip with a tube in her foot carrying IV fluids and drugs. Her other foot has the monitor probe attached. In her little nose sit nasal cannulas and an NG tube, where they are trying to pass fluids which keep coming up. Her chest is sticky with the residue from where ECG pads where attached in the ambulance. Bed baths just do not cut it for removing adhesives.

She loves watching through windows, pressing up against the glass.

At home, she pulls to stand clutching the rim of our windowsill, peering out. She bats the windchime hung over the curtain rail. She presses up squwarking with mirth at people on the other side of the glass, and showing her new skill of pointing at things.

I wish I could show you now, Wriggles.

I wish you could see the cars.

I wish you could see the people.

I wish you could see the puddles.

I wish we were anywhere but here, stuck in a room on isolation nursing, stuck in a bed because there is too much equipment to reach anywhere.

I wish you were well, darling girl.